Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Review- TWILIGHT

TWILIGHT
(DC, First Printing, 2014;
Softcover)

Collects
Twilight
#1-3
(cover
dates December, 1990- February, 1991)

Writer:
Howard Chaykin

Artist:
Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez

Colorist:
Steve Oliff

There
are two ways that I read comic books. First, I read it as
entertainment in the here and now. Second, I try to keep in mind the
era which the material was originally published. Context can make me
forgive certain things. Watchmen kicked open the floodgates
for Mature Readers comics. While there were certainly things going on
in the 1970s and early 1980s it was the critical mass and popularity
of that title that made it really happen. DC ushered in the “Prestige
format” for comics, 48 page squarebound comics with cardstock
covers printed on glossy coated stock paper and utilizing more
sophisticated colors than those found in the pulp paper comics of the
day. These comics did not adhere to the Comics Code Authority, thus
allowing creators to indulge in every whim that had been denied to
them up until that point in time. Cursing, excessive violence, sexual
situations...nothing was off the table so long as it was artfully
done. Again, context of the era. What was once cutting edge and
creative becomes strip-mined and pedestrian. This might have been
mind blowing 25 years ago but it is a chore to read in 2015.

Twilight
utilizes some lesser known DC heroes and launches them into a
separate continuity, and this automatically relegates it to a
Watchmen knockoff in my mind. This is super dense, text heavy
reading. While I am not a fan of decompression, this is overwritten
and overwrought and was as much fun to read as chewing chalk. This is
passed off as intelligent writing but it is more of a verbal jerkoff.
Chaykin tries to be clever but comes off as labored and too self
aware to pull it off. He muses on immortality, religion, godhood,
sexuality, and human nature, all in one long, droning puke. If not
for Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez's artwork this book would have been a
completely lost cause. This book has caused me to once again
reevaluate which books I purchase and why. I simply don't hate my
money this much.

Junk
Food For Thought rating: 1 out of 5.

The
OCD zone-

Linework
and Color restoration: I am fairly certain that these are
scans of the original comics, as there several spots where line bleed
is present. The airbrush coloring of the day would be extremely
difficult to replicate, so this might have been the safest route.